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Mormons’ disgust with Donald Trump turns Utah into close race

Against all odds, Hillary Clinton has a chance to win one of America’s most Republican states.

Donald Trump didn’t just lose the Utah caucus. He got walloped, 69 per cent for Ted Cruz to his 14. As Republicans in other states have united behind him, Utah has remained an unlikely bastion of resistance.
(Rick Bowmer / AP)

WASHINGTON—Braden Green, a Utah conservative who voted for Mitt Romney and John McCain, never saw a reason to register as a Republican until this year’s presidential primaries.

He didn’t feel a sudden burst of partisan loyalty. Like tens of thousands of his fellow Mormons, he wanted to vote against Donald Trump.

Utah is one of the three most Republican states in America. Thanks to Mormons’ disgust with Trump’s personality and policies, which seem almost custom-designed to appall them, it is also, somehow, a state Hillary Clinton could win.

“Will people turn out and vote in November? There’s a real danger that they simply will not come to the polls, and if that happens, then there is an opening for Hillary to win the state, there’s no question,” said Stan Lockhart, former chairman of the Utah Republican Party. “The challenge is: he’s not persuaded us. He’s not done anything to reassure us. He’s not done anything to let us know that he stands for something.”

Trump is doing poorly in much of the country. In no other place are his numbers quite so dreadful. Romney won Utah by 48 points, McCain by 28. A June poll had Trump and Clinton tied at 35 per cent with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 13 per cent.

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“He’s wildly unpopular in my state, in part because my state consists of people who are members of a religious-minority church,” Republican Sen. Mike Lee said in a Wednesday Newsmax interview.

Trump didn’t just lose the Utah caucus. He got walloped, 69 per cent for Ted Cruz to his 14. As Republicans in other states have united behind him, Utah has remained an unlikely bastion of resistance.

“The conversations that I’ve had with folks, and looking at my personal feelings: we don’t trust him,” said Ryan Nelson, 43, a business owner and the Republican chair in Iron County. “From the things I’ve read and studied, I don’t agree with some of what he’s saying, particularly the way he’s saying it.”

Trump’s Utah problem starts with his behaviour. Republicans elsewhere have viewed his coarse manner of speaking as evidence of honesty, his insult-flinging as evidence of independence, his ostentation evidence of business acumen, his extramarital affairs as irrelevant.

To many Mormons, they are grievous flaws that add up to a disquieting immorality. The Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, preaches humility, modesty, chastity and civility.

Many evangelicals have a similar smell test, and Trump is doing far better with them. Part of the difference can be explained by Mormons’ higher levels of income, education and church attendance. But the collective recoil is as much about Trump’s platform as demographics or personality.

Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric has enthused a large majority of Republicans. In Utah, where three-fifths of the population belongs to a long-marginalized religion that makes up 1.6 per cent of the U.S. population, it has proven a massive liability.

“He has given the impression that he is willing to take on and discriminate against a minority religious group. And that has been something that Mormons have taken personally,” said Richard Davis, a BYU political science professor and a former Democratic county chair.

The church issued an unprecedented statement in response to Trump’s proposal to ban foreign Muslims, declaring itself “not neutral in relation to religious freedom.” The U.S. secretary of state sought in 1879 to restrict Mormon immigration, calling them, as Trump now does Muslims, potential criminals. The Mormons of the early 19th century faced mob violence and government persecution.

“Because it happened to my people, albeit 150-plus years ago, I’d like to think that I am more sensitive to making sure that it doesn’t happen to another religious group,” said Green, 30, a master’s student.

Trump’s hostility to illegal immigrants has played little better in Utah than the Muslim-bashing. The Mormon church strongly prefers immigrant-friendly reform to mass deportation, and polls suggest Mormons are more supportive of immigration than just about any other religious group. Thousands have done missionary service in Spanish-speaking countries.

“I am not a fan of his extremism with immigration. It comes across as racist and xenophobic,” said Green, who served a mission in the Dominican Republic. “I believe in having secure borders, but that immigration is a positive thing for America and helps out far more than it hurts.”

Trump further damaged himself by questioning Romney’s own Mormon faith. Romney, a beloved figure in the state, had delivered a blistering anti-Trump speech two weeks prior.

“Mitt Romney has a lot of sway with a lot of people, and they look up to him,” said Davis County Republican chairman Rob Anderson, 50, a Trump supporter and airline pilot. “I was somewhat disappointed when he came out and said those things … but I was a unicorn in thinking that in Utah. I think most people were on board with Romney.”

Clinton will still be hard-pressed to eke out a victory in a state no Democrat has won since 1964. Davis said Trump will likely take Utah’s six electoral votes in a close race, “only because of the partisan factor.” Nelson said he will probably choose Trump despite his misgivings: he thinks Clinton is worse.

“The majority of Utahns will come around,” Anderson said. But it will take time.

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